VMworld this year was centered highly around how VMware will partner with AWS. At the conference, VMware announced limited availability of VMware Cloud on AWS in the US-West-2 region. From someone who is a VMworld alum, I was excited about all the AWS content added to the schedule for 2017 and it shows the effort and collaboration the two tech companies are putting into the partnership. Going in we were aware of potential announcements as Trace3 is a participant in the Beta program, so this was a great show of confidence from both VMware and AWS that they are ready to roll out the service. You can check out more on the services here.

Some sessions I attended on the topic included: VMWare Cloud on AWS Overview, VMWare Cloud on AWS Architecture Deep Dive, and Using vRealize with VMware Cloud on AWS. While there was a great amount of information consumed at these sessions, I did come away with some key pieces of information:

Deployment: VMware Cloud on AWS is deployed in an automated manner through the AWS console where the console user chooses the VPC, account, and subnet that the cloud will preside in. Deployment consists of all the hosts, clusters, resource pools that are required, as well as NSX, vSAN, vCenter and other components. So, it’s basically a fully-baked vSphere environment. We’ve been asking for this for a long time!

Networking: NSX is the only option in AWS. This makes sense because you are deploying in an AWS subnet, so VMware can then virtualize the network and present several different subnets from a vSphere perspective. Also of note, it does not require NSX in your on-premises environment.

vRealize Automation: vRA sits outside of the VMware Cloud on AWS and is intended to be consumed in a SaaS model that can connect to your VMware cloud both on-premises and in AWS.

VMC Assessment: vRealize Business now presents a VMC assessment that will model your on-premises vSphere environment and detail the capacity you require in AWS and preview the anticipated monthly cost. This should be a great tool to help customers move to the cloud.

Hybrid: All the VMware services are moving to Hybrid (more-so than before). This means vRealize Operations can monitor your on-premises or VMware Cloud on AWS seamlessly. Cost Insight, vRealize Automation, Network Insight are now also becoming fully hybrid in a new way.

Billing: From what we heard, the billing options will be either through VMware as a managed cloud or as part of a customer’s AWS bill as another service that is consumed. This didn’t sound totally clear during the conference, but I’m positive they will get it right.

Overall, I came away from VMworld with the impression that VMware Cloud on AWS will be very compelling to IT executives. They would be able to reduce real estate and infrastructure footprint without having to retool the skillsets of their IT staff greatly. It also provides the means to scale to other locations easily without a great deal of runway (already a cloud benefit).

Trace3 is uniquely positioned to partner with customers and assist them with VMware Cloud on AWS because we are one of the few in the marketplace that is both a VMware and AWS partner. Learn more about our Cloud Transformational Services. Looking forward to VMworld 2018.